The Don and His Russian Bride

Chapter 11

“When do you think he’ll be back?” I asked Carlotta. After washing all of the dishes from lunch, I demanded she take a break with me. We were sitting on the sofa in the living room together. My feet rested on top of the coffee table and a bowl of ice cream sat in my hands.

“I don’t know. He doesn’t usually notify me when he will return from business trips. Did he tell you what time to expect him to be back?”

“He said he would be gone for a few days. He should be back by now.”

Nearly a week had passed since Luciano left the mansion. His business had seemed urgent, and perhaps it was taking longer to settle because he ran into trouble. However, it occurred to me that if anything happened to him while he was away, I didn’t even have a cellphone for him to contact me. The bastard wouldn’t let me have any communication with the outside world and now I had no way of knowing if he was okay.

Carlotta leaned forward with interest. Her elbows descended onto her knees as she placed her chin in her hands. “Does that concern you? I thought you enjoyed spending your time here without him.”

I huffed. For the past week I had been able to hang out with Carlotta for the majority of each day. One thing I learned in all our time together was that Carlotta hopes I will soon catch feelings for Luciano. Each comment she makes about our nonexistent relationship, I remind her why I could never fall in love with him.

“I do. Just because I want to know when he will return, doesn’t mean I’m excited about it.”

“Of course it doesn’t.”

I rolled my eyes at her attempt to humor me. “I’m going back to my room now.”

“Have fun. You know where I’ll be if you need anything.”

I thanked her as I walked out of the living room. While Carlotta and I were two very different people, I loved having her around to talk to every day. Her friendship was one of the few bright sides that came from this god awful marriage. Back home, the only person I considered a friend was Dmitri. But while I enjoyed our time together working out, eating, and watching movies, I could never have a heart to heart with him like I could with Carlotta. She understood the one thing that he would never— girl talk.

Carlotta was a total gossip. She told me stories about her rebellious teenage years and how she came to be a cook for Luciano’s father. And while I don’t know many of the maids personally, I could name all the girls who were single and who weren’t. I even learned more about Luciano through the small details she would share with me from time to time. For instance, the man is so OCD about his food that he will refuse to eat a meal if one type of food mixes with another on his plate.

I meandered down the hallways with intentions to walk straight to my room. However, I paused when I reached the entrance of the dark hallway leading up to Luciano's office. My feet moved of their own accord towards the closed door. Since Luciano’s departure from the mansion, this area of the house remained untouched.

Standing in front of the office door, I reached out my hand to twist the handle. It began to turn before coming to an abrupt stop. Did Luciano lock it, suspecting I would try to go in without him here? He may have been right, but I would’ve liked him to have more faith in me. I considered picking the lock before realizing whatever confidential information he kept in there made no real difference to me. Besides, guards still swarmed the house— both to protect me from intruders and keep me in line.

I couldn’t get into his office, but he wouldn’t have locked every other room.

I surveyed each hallway as I moved. Each one came across just as empty as the next, as if the house belonged to ghosts. I continued on my previous path to my room. Except when I arrived, I turned towards the opposite door.

A deep breath fell from me as I placed my hand on the doorknob. The handle to Luciano’s room turned without a fight. Before anyone could stop me, I jumped into the dark room and shut the door behind me.

Just as I had imagined, natural light filtered into the bedroom through the windows. My fingers searched the wall for a light switch, wanting to further combat the darkness of the black decor.

With the lights on, I made my way deeper into the bedroom. Him being gone offered me a rare opportunity to search around without his knowledge. Somehow, Luciano always knows what goes on in the mansion. Every time we are together, he has the upperhand. For once, I would like to come to the fight with my own ammunition.

I began by opening the top drawer of his nightstand. I found a gun, unsurprisingly. The lower one though, stored numerous family photos. I almost awed out loud at a picture of young Luciano holding a golden lab puppy. Throughout all of the photos, Luciano stood next to his four sisters, his mom, and a man who bore no resemblance to Luciano.

Why didn’t Luciano have a single photo of his father? Maybe his father died much earlier than I had suspected. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized Carlotta never talked about the time when Luciano was little.

A sigh escaped me as I closed the drawer. Snooping in his room didn’t seem to fill in any blanks. It merely brought on more questions.

I stepped around the king sized bed towards one of the large windows. The sun shone through the pane into the room. I had yet to see a less than beautiful day in Sicily.

My eyes roved the vacant grounds of the property. Though others stayed at the mansion, it seemed deserted without Luciano’s presence. From the still blue pool, my gaze traveled across the fresh cut grass to the lone shed.

Luciano had ordered me to stay away from there. I hadn’t given much thought about disobeying him. Lord only knows what he would do if he found me there again. But Luciano wasn’t here. And I could no longer control the urge to discover his secrets.

I walked as fast as I could without raising suspicion throughout the house. Any men I passed in the hallways ignored me as usual. When I arrived outside, I made my way through the yard with a delicate swiftness, turning my head from right to left in case someone came out to intercept me.

I tried the door to the shed, knowing it would be locked just like the last time I stumbled upon it. This time, I was a step ahead of the game. I had stopped by my room earlier to grab a hair pin. With one last glance to see if anyone was near, I inserted the pin into the lock, twisting and turning it to outmaneuver the mechanism.

Picking locks was one of the most valuable skills I left boarding school with. A classmate of mine knew how to after several accounts of “borrowing” money from her dad’s office. When I forgot the key to my dormitory, she helped me by undoing the lock. She then showed me how in case it ever happened again. The skill has proved useful on several accounts since.

After a minute of fiddling with the pin in the lock, I finally heard the click I had been waiting for. I pulled out the hair pin and wrapped my fingers around the doorknob. It turned effortlessly, allowing me to push in the door and enter.

Within an instant, the smell of sawdust hit my nose. I shut the door, hiding myself from anyone who went outside. The scent grew stronger without a way to escape the enclosed space. I continued to breathe it in, hoping it would be a matter of time before my nose stopped registering the scent.

Daylight poured in through the small windows at the tops of the walls, though it didn’t reach far enough below to illuminate the space. My right hand patted the wall for several seconds before it made contact with the light switches.

Within seconds, the lights came on, revealing the reason for the strong scent. The shed turned out to be a woodshop. I moved away from the door, hoping to take a closer look. With each step, my shoes collected sawdust from the floor. If I had to guess, I would say not even the maids were allowed in the building. It had been ages since anyone swept.

Two large tables aligned with each other in the center of the room. On them laid small, half finished projects among lengths of wooden planks. There were desk drawers, table legs, and pieces of wood with intricate carvings. I picked up a small figurine of an owl, inspecting the fine detail that went into it. I set it down exactly where I found it before wandering forward. My fingertips brushed against the tops of a table as I walked until I noticed the trails left in the dust. My heart sped up as I grabbed a dry rag from the table to wipe away the evidence.

I quickly moved away from the tables towards the back of the room, where an unfinished desk stood. By the look of it alone, I could tell the desk was well built and sturdy. It only needed to be polished and given it’s drawers to be complete. The edges held carvings just as beautiful as the ones I had seen throughout the mansion.

My eyes roamed to the left side of the room, where the table saw and various woodworking tools were. Questions racked my brain. Did Luciano really make all the things in this room? In the mansion? The beautiful divots and curves on the china cabinet and my bedroom dresser weren’t the kind made by machinery. None of the carvings followed the exact same pattern, but each of them carried a delicacy carved by the same hand. Even still, I couldn’t believe the cutthroat mafia boss I knew led a double life as a handyman.

Why did his hobby have to be so secretive? Luciano could’ve told me what was in here if he wanted me to stay away. Part of me had expected to enter a dungeon of sorts, or a place where dead bodies were stored, not a woodshop.

When I moved past the corner full of equipment I didn’t know the names of, the door slammed shut to my right. I turned towards the sound without even realizing it.

The tension from clenching his fists caused the veins in his arms to pop out and his body shook so rapidly, he was practically vibrating.

“I told you not to be in here.”

I should’ve started apologizing profusely at that moment. I should’ve thrown up my hands in surrender so as not to set off the ticking time bomb. Instead, I said, “You weren’t supposed to be back yet.”

His jaw tightened with such intensity, images of his teeth grinding together filled my head. He spoke his next words with a slow precision, “What are you doing in here?”

I grasped for any excuse. “The door was open—”

“The door was locked.”

“My curiosity got the better of me.”

He shook his head. “Your impatience did. I might’ve brought you in here some day had you not taken it upon yourself to break in.”

“I don’t see the issue. It’s just wood.”

Luciano walked towards me. I didn’t dare step back as he closed the gap between us. For all I knew, the smallest thing could cause him to explode. “The issue is that you disobeyed my orders again. The only difference now is that I won’t let this go unpunished.”

My eyes widened. I didn’t have time to protest or ask what he meant because he pushed me face down onto the empty space of the closest table. My hands stung from the way they slammed onto the unforgiving wood.

“Next time, you’ll think twice before you blatantly disregard my orders.”

One of his hands splayed out on top of my back, holding me down. The other found its way to the waistband of my sweatpants. Though knowing I wasn’t at fault, I cursed myself for not wearing something more difficult to take off.

My breathing picked up as cool air hit my bare bottom. He didn’t have the right to touch me like this. I imagined myself swinging my arm back into his nose or kicking my leg out to meet his groin. I searched for any way to make him break his hold on me. Instead, my body remained frozen under his authority.

“Do you know what happens to women who disobey me?” Luciano’s calloused palm cupped the soft globe of my ass. My teeth dug into my lower lip as I awaited the answer. “They get spanked.”

Luciano’s hand left my bare cheek only to descend a second later with a forceful impact. His rough hands stung my sensitive flesh. I dug my elbows into the wooden table and closed my eyes to keep from screaming out.

One. Two. Three. I counted silently each time he slammed his palm against me. I winced at the contact. The pain built up with every additional assault. In total, he spanked me ten times before pulling my sweatpants back up to where they belonged.

When Luciano took a step away from me, I stood up from my bent over position. I could not meet his eyes.

Luciano grabbed my arm with less force than I expected. Nonetheless, I wanted to squirm out of his grip. His mouth lowered until he spoke directly into my ear. “Don’t let me catch you in here again.”

I nodded and scurried out of the shed as soon as he let go of me. Flames lit my behind with every step. Though my sweatpants hung loose from my hips, the rubbing of the fabric caused unbearable friction.

Once I found the solace of my room, I discarded the warm sweatpants. I then averted my gaze to the floor as I passed the mirror, unable to even glance at the redness on my skin Luciano left in his wake.

I laid down on my stomach, hoping stillness could make the feeling of a hundred needles poking into my backside go away. Tears fell into my pillow as if they could wash away the humiliation of being caught red handed and spanked like a toddler. As if they could drown out the fear of how far my husband would go to hurt me if it meant keeping me under his control.